Into The Unknown
by caffinate-me
Summary: Sequel to 'Back to Where We Have Never Been'. One year later, wedding plans for writer Richard Castle and Russian Literature Professor Kate Beckett are in full swing but will life and emotions threaten happily ever after? AU. In Progress.
1. Prologue

Into the Unknown

Sequel to 'Back to Where We Have Never Been'

(Must read first)

Happy birthday, AC. ;)

Graphic courtesy of the awesomely talented Dtrekker. Edited by the always amazing Kate Christie.

* * *

Prologue

_Will you marry me?_

Kate's eyes drifted up from the dedication page of Stalemate as a shadow fell over her. She could feel his presence wrapping around her like a blanket, and her lips curved into a soft smile of their own accord as she tilted her head back to peer up at him. Her fingers curled over his words printed on the page for her. Only her. To see, to read. No one else. Her dedication, her autograph, her proposal.

"Hi," she greeted softly.

"Hey," he answered in kind.

Rocking back on his heels, Castle shoved his idle hands in his pockets as he looked down at her sprawled out on the floor in between the stacks.

"So…?" His unvoiced query dying on his lips as his gaze dropped down the words printed under Kate's hand.

"So?" Kate parroted back, lips quirked, eyebrow raised as she stared up at him, feigning ignorance at his partially asked question.

"Did… did you read it?" Castle stuttered quietly.

"Did I read what?"

"You know, the inscription?"

"Well," Kate started, her lips quirked. She was going to make him work for it, to make him ask. It was only proper after all, and since the rest of their relationship had been far from proper, they should have to start somewhere. "I saw that you had scribbled something here, but it was hard to make out what it said…"

"Hard to make out?" Castle squeaked, squatting down to pull Kate's hand away from the page. It was printed perfectly, neatly. A farsighted child would be able to read that handwriting. How could she not…

He gripped her wrist gently as he pulled it away from the page, her fingers curling into a loose fist as he held it up in the air. His gaze dropped to the words only to dart back up to her face. A soft grin greeting him. "You…"

The scrawled words in black with a simple three letter reply written in red ink underneath.

Ask.

"Ask me," she whispered, voice trembling, as he stared at the word.

His eyes locked back with hers and the rest of the world fell away: the bookstore staff manning the counter and wandering the stacks, the sound of the espresso machine steaming in the coffee shop, excited fans twittering about his inscriptions as they hung around the door for one last glimpse as he made his way back out into the world. It was only the two of them, back where they first met; where it had all began with a series of bad pick-up lines and below-the-belt insults. A chase full of banter, tears, laughter, looks and words, spoken and otherwise. Their story: a fractured fairy tale, which deserved a happy ending.

He reached into his pocket and she sat up straighter, crossing her legs in front of her as she placed the book on the ground at her side, lip drawn between her teeth, her eyes never leaving his.

"Katherine Houghton Beckett," he started, his voice a rumble, which mixed with the pounding of her heart, making her chest vibrate. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

The word, barely a whisper, caught in her throat, came out as more of a sob as her chin crumbled. She sniffed in a breath, mentally justifying the sudden burst tears on jetlag.

"Yes?" His eyes widened as if it was the last word he had expected to hear. But she simply nodded, reaching out with both of her hands to cup his face, guiding his lips to meet hers as she murmured the three-letter word against his skin over and over.

"It was always yes," she whispered, swiping a thumb along his cheekbone as she pulled away to look him in the eye. "All I want is you."

"You have me, forever."

"For always."

He nodded as he grasped her left hand in his, holding it steady as he pried the ring out of the box with his right one, fumbling slightly causing her to laugh.

"No laughing," he chided gently as he slid the three-stone ring onto her fourth finger. "This is serious business."

She reached up, once the ring was on her finger, guiding him in for another kiss just as a light flashed, blinding them both.

Kate pulled back tilting her head down so that there foreheads were pressed together. She let out a pained moan causing Castle to chuckle in her ear. They had managed to keep their public appearances to a minimum since New Orleans.

"And so it begins…"

"So, Future Mrs. Castle," Castle murmured. "You ready to meet the press?"

"As ready as I will ever be," Kate replied as Castle stood, reaching down to take her by the hands, hoisting her up off the ground, with a little more force than necessary causing her to stumble, her front pressing into his.

Another light flashed.

"You did that on purpose."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Love you."

He grasped her hand in his as she reached down to swipe her newly beloved book off the ground. She definitely couldn't forget that.

"Love you too, but you still did that on purpose."

"Prove it," he challenged as they stepped out of the aisle and into the milling crowd of fans and scattered reporters, both of them nodding and flashing the occasional smile.

Kate glanced at him as she reached up with the hand gripping the book to swipe at an errant strand of hair that had stuck to her lip. She didn't have to fake the smile that crossed her face as they made their way toward the exit.

* * *

A/N: Some of you might recognize the prologue as the last installment of 'Sideways Steps', it is just here as a bridge to 'Back to Where'. Chapter 1, which will start one year after the end of 'Back to Where' will be up promptly.


	2. Chapter 1

Into The Unknown

Chapter 1

One year later

Kate turned from side to side watching her reflection stare back at her from the tri-fold mirror. Pausing momentarily, she scrunched her nose before turning once more, twisting back to look over her shoulder, the short train of the dress swishing behind her.

It wasn't right.

None of it was right.

Not the venue or the flowers or the music or the stupid bridesmaids dresses. She couldn't even find a wedding dress she liked. A wedding wasn't supposed to be this difficult. It was supposed to be fun; she was supposed to be giddy. Not that she was ever giddy, exactly, but still, her reasoning was sound. Her stomach wasn't supposed to be turning in knots over every last detail.

Castle had offered to hire a wedding planner, but she hadn't wanted a planner in charge of her wedding, she'd wanted to do it, to have a modicum of control. Especially now that the guest list had grown to over 200 invitees, she was being asked to make women she had only met one time into bridesmaids, and Paula was insisting on having them do a spread for Page 6, and she had never realized Castle was _that _big of a celebrity.

"Katie, do you think you could quit panicking long enough for me to finish this paragraph? I've been so distracted by the turmoil radiating out of your every pore that I've read the same sentence ten times."

Kate's eyes snapped over to where her mother was sitting in the corner of the bridal shop, her nose still stuck in the inch-thick file she had brought with her. "Mom, do you think you could stop reading long enough to help me pick one?"

She could hear the childish whine in her own voice as she sassed back, reminding her of so many adolescent arguments from two decades earlier.

Johanna's eyes slowly swiveled up from the page, one perfectly curved eyebrow raised so it arched just above the rim of her reading glasses. "Katie, trust me when I say this, I could point to any dress in here and tell you to get it, that it would look beautiful on you, because it would, but it still wouldn't feel right. This stress isn't about a dress; this is about something else. _What, _exactly, is for you to figure out on your own."

Kate's jaw dropped when her mother turned back to the file, the elder Beckett's attention no longer on her only daughter as she stood on the short podium in the middle of the room.

"That's it? You're not going to say anything else? I brought you here to get your opinion."

Johanna lifted her head once more, this time with an accompanying sigh. "Katherine, you have tried on dozens, if not hundreds, of dresses over the past few weeks. I'm pretty sure we have been to every bridal shop in the city… twice, and there has been nothing you've liked. Every single dress has had _something_ wrong with it. That, dear, has nothing to do with the dresses, and everything to do with you. So no, I'm not going to say anything else on the subject."

Kate's shoulders slumped as Johanna highlighted another section of the brief in her lap; her eyes wandered back to the mirrors, studying the reflection staring back at her. The dress _was _beautiful, as were most of the ones she had tried on.

Her mother was right.

She _really_ hated when that happened.

* * *

"You want to talk about it?"

Kate's eyes rose from where they had been glued to the ceramic coffee cup perched on the wrought iron table in front of her. Her foot was swinging erratically, nearly tripping a couple of the pedestrians who had swerved a little too close to the outdoor seating area of their favorite café.

"Talk about what?"

Johanna shrugged her shoulders as she lifted her cup to her lips. "You tell me."

Kate huffed. "There's nothing to talk about. Everything is fine."

"Mmhmm."

Kate's eyes narrowed at her mother. Why couldn't she just drop it?

"It's the truth, everything is fine, great. Totally and utterly perfect."

"And that's bad because…"

Kate sighed as her eyes rolled to the side, her gaze settling on the parade of shoes racing past them up and down the sidewalk. It had started like a fairytale. Boy meets girl, boy pursues girl under false pretenses but girl is already taken. Boy loses girl only to get girl back again and live happily ever after.

Perfect.

It was good; it was comfortable. It was cuddling on the couch after a long day, smiling over a movie or telling silly stories. It was sitting side by side in bed reading, no words needing to be spoken between them, because anything she could ask for he had already anticipated.

Her arms tightened where they were wrapped around her middle, squeezing her body a little too tightly.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with perfect.

* * *

Her chin was propped in her hand as she studied the line of elephants parading across her desk, eyes drifting lazily over their curved trunks, the carved features of their faces: eyes, smiling mouths, tiny tusks. Minutes earlier she had been staring at the row of Matryoshka dolls on the top shelf of her bookcase. There was a pile of memos on her desk begging for her attention, a 'To Do' list on her desktop stating urgent upcoming deadlines and a stack of syllabi demanding completion, but she had no drive to touch any of it. The discussion, or the lack of discussion rather, she had had with her mother two days before, was still fresh on her mind.

Even Castle had known something was wrong. Her stilted end of the conversation when he had called her from his L.A. hotel room the night before, a dead giveaway.

_"Hi, honey."_

_Kate rolled her eyes, her melancholy temporarily breaking with this annoying use of a pet name. "How many times have I told you not to call me that?"_

_"Baby, sugar pie, schnookums?"_

_"Castle." This time his name came out in an exasperated growl, even with the smile threatening to break across her lips._

_"Okay, okay, I'll stop."_

_A silence settled over them and she leaned back against the pile of pillows on her side of the bed, willing her spine to relax. The glass on the nightstand had been long empty save for the small pool of red wine threatening to stain the curve just above the stem._

_"How was shopping with your mom?"_

_Her sigh echoed through the line. "Fine."_

_"Didn't find one yet, huh?"_

_"No."_

_"You will."_

_"Yeah."_

_Another stretch of silence._

_"So, how was your day?" Even she could hear the forced levity in her voice as she flipped the wedding planner closed with her foot. Out of sight, out of mind. That was the plan, at least._

_"Good. It was good. Tiring, though. You would think this was my first book, not my 28th by the way Paula has me running all over the place. Oh, speaking of Paula, she wants to sit down with us about the reception. Something about catering logistics."_

_Kate's eyes slammed shut as she gave up on trying to relax. Leaning forward to wrap her arms around her bent legs, she rested her cheek on her knees, the tightness in her chest returning. Why would Paula even care about catering?_

_"Kate? Did you hear me?"_

_"Yeah," she breathed out. "I heard you. Just tired."_

_"Yeah, sure. Me too. We'll talk about it later."_

_"Yeah."_

_Another beat of silence._

_"Kate?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"I love you."_

_She had to force herself to breathe, to swallow down the lump in her throat that was causing her to choke on her reply. Because she did love him, she wanted him but not the photo shoots and reporters and articles on page six. But he did. And she was taking too long to respond; she could feel it, hear it in the silence from the other end of the line._

_"I love you too."_

Three years of knowing each other, two years together and still her stomach churned whenever a serious topic came up, and if the hesitation in his voice was any indication, he felt the same way. No words were good words. For a literature professor and a writer they were curiously adept at talking around subjects, verbally and nonverbally. After all, why should they have to actually speak about a problem when they could just momentarily diffuse it with sex?

But after spending the better part of the last month with a continent between them, there were no searching lips or wandering hands to prompt physical solutions. On that call, there had been only two breathing bodies on opposite ends of a phone line with a void gaping between them. A void that had begun quickly filling with everything they were not saying.

"Kate!"

Kate startled, elbow slipping off the edge of the desk, head whipping toward the door only to find her friend and fellow professor, Rebecca Harding, leaning against the doorjamb staring back at her, arms crossed over her chest, amused smile playing on her lips.

"Nice of you to join us, I called your name three times," Rebecca laughed as she pushed herself off of the wall and stepped into the small office, taking Kate's sudden attention as an invitation to sit in one of the two visitor chairs across the desk.

"Yeah, sorry." Kate shook her head, attempting to rid her mind of the spiral of thoughts. "Just tired lately."

"Mmhmm," Rebecca hummed in response. "One would think that you'd be getting more sleep with your man across the country. Or is it wedding jitters keeping you awake at night, Little Miss Soon-To-Be-Married. Wait..."

Rebecca paused, eyes wide, jaw slack. "You're not pregnant, are you?"

"What?" Kate pushed herself up from her slouched position so she was sitting at her full height. "No. No, I am definitely _not_ pregnant."

"Right…"

"Rebecca," Kate sighed as she sank back down again, spine curving back into the chair, rubbing her thumb and pointer finger in small circles over the throbbing pulse point that had formed in the middle of her forehead. "I'm not pregnant, okay? And can you stop exclaiming wild theories like that? Gossip travels like wildfire around this place, and who knows what would happen to my chances of tenure if rumors of my 'pregnancy' started to spread."

The other woman leaned forward at those words, a glint in her eye. "Well, Miss Assistant Professor Beckett, I have it on good authority that the shortlist for tenure is out and your name is on the top. So, at this point I don't think Baby Beckett would have much of an effect on the decision."

"Rebecca!" Kate hissed again, her wide eyes snapping toward the open doorway. The halls were mostly empty, this being the week between the last summer session and the start of the fall semester, but the walls had ears.

"Okay, okay, fine." Rebecca replied with a wave of her hand, the flippancy in her voice speaking volumes about how much she was not convinced by Kate's fervent denial, as she levered herself back out of the chair. "I just wanted to stop by to clue you in on the rumor mill and to let you know that Tony wants to see you, maybe he has news..."

Kate gulped at that revelation. Dr. Anthony London was the head of the department, a stern man with salt and pepper hair and a severe lack of a sense of humor. _Tony_, as the junior faculty called him behind his back, had served four years in the military before heading into academia, a complete 180 when it came to life choices, but part of the rigid lifestyle remained.

Sucking in a deep breath, she pushed herself out of her own chair and followed Rebecca out of her tiny, over-cluttered office. She really should take out some of the books. But, whom was she kidding, getting rid of books was akin to heresy in the literature world.

Good luck, Rebecca mouthed to her as they parted ways in front of the department head's office, and Kate turned, greeting Dr. London's assistant with a tight smile.

"Good morning, Gretchen, I was told Dr. London wanted to see me."

Gretchen, a formidable, middle-aged woman with a penchant for holiday-themed sweater vests and horn-rimmed glasses on a chain, gave a less than sunny reply.

"Dr. Beckett, let me see if he's available."

Kate studied the older woman's expression for any indication for the reason for the meeting, but she was met only with a stony blank wall. The woman had one of the best poker faces she had ever seen; Castle would be proud.

A sudden pang shot through her heart at the thought of her fiancé, and how she had dismissed the concern in his voice the night before. She was fine, okay, good. Of course there was nothing wrong, what would possibly be wrong? She was fine, perfectly fine, perfect in fact.

"Dr. Beckett."

Kate's attention snapped to the woman in front of her, cheeks burning with the knowledge that two people had caught her lost in thought in the workplace in less than half an hour. She really needed to stop doing that. She didn't need to be thinking about relationship issues right now, not when she should be thinking about the fact that she was probably going to be offered tenure, something she had been working toward for the past eight years.

She pressed another smile to her lips as she forced her feet to move, a little too quickly, around the desk and through the double doors behind the guard of Gretchen's desk.

"Dr. London," Kate greeted as she poked her head into the office. "You wanted to see me?"

"Ah, Dr. Beckett, Katherine, please come in. Have a seat. There is something I would like to talk to you about."

"Ah, yes Sir." Kate blew out a slow breath as she sank down into one of the plush leather seats. The butterflies were beginning to flutter in her stomach.

"A position has come available," Dr. London started as he pushed himself out of his chair to pace the wide space behind his desk. "And while some others were thought of for this particular task, you have been highly recommended."

Kate's breath caught in her chest. This was actually happening.

"...And you are under no obligation to accept, but it would reflect very well on you as well as the university..."

What? Of course she was going to accept.

"... I do understand that you are engaged, and this could involve a good bit of travel even though it would be based in The City."

Kate cocked her head to the side, brow furrowed. Okay, now he had officially lost her.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but what are you talking about?"

Dr. London paused mid-stride. "Oh, I apologize, Katherine, I thought I had mentioned it. The Russians have a new ambassador, a 'man of the people'. And while this could mean good things for the country, having a voice of the masses, et cetera, it also means that his children have been less educated than those who have come before."

Kate sank back into her chair, her eyes fluttering closed as she pressed her fingers to her temples. Now it was clear. This definitely wasn't about tenure.

"He has two daughters, both under the age of ten, and neither of them is even close to being fluent in English. What they need is regular tutoring on top of their school work."

Her boss wanted her to be a glorified au pair? "But, Sir, my classes..."

"Oh, in the case that you take the offer, for which you, of course, would be very well compensated, along with it reflecting _very_ well in your record at the university, Dr. Good has offered to take over your intro classes. He's looking to take on some more courses since he accepted tenure."

Kate's eyes snapped open. John Good? He had been offered the tenure spot? John was... Kate took a calming breath, forcing the line of expletives back down. John was not right for a tenure spot. Not only was he an adjunct, he was lazy, half of his course material came from Wikipedia, and he didn't care nearly as much about his students learning as he did about keeping them within the bell-curve. Not to mention he taught _American_ Literature, not Russian. How was he supposed to do Dostoyevskey, Tolstoy or Bulgakov justice if he couldn't even speak the language?

"I'm sorry, did you just say that John Good was offered the tenure spot this year?"

"Oh, yes, the announcement won't be made formally until the beginning of the academic year, next week, so I trust you will keep that information to yourself for now."

Two years. They had promised her tenure within two years if she took this position at Columbia. She drew in a calming breath, her nails digging into her palm. "Dr. London, no offense to Dr. Good, but if I may ask, I submitted my application for the position."

The dean let out a chuckle, forcing the flame of indignation burning in Kate's chest to ignite once more. "Katherine, you are a good teacher, even with that unfortunate incident from last year on your record. The students like you, the ones who make it to the end of the semester at least. You have a promising career ahead, but John has ten years on you and quite frankly, he has been published many more times than you have been."

Kate scoffed, sure he had been _published_ more times than she had, but she had written _entire_ _articles_ in Russian.

"But, as I said, taking this position would go a long way with the tenure committee next year."

* * *

Kate sank back against her boss' door the minute it clicked shut behind her, and she ran her hands, warm and clammy from where they had been clenched in fists at her side for the duration of the meeting, over her face. She could feel Gretchen's squinted eyes burning into her, but she didn't care.

She was being forced into a circus of a wedding, she had been passed over for tenure again, and her boss was strong-arming her into giving up her classes to a half-assed excuse for a professor so she could go play nanny to a couple of kids.

Everything was falling apart.

Pulling her phone out of her back pocket she pushed herself off of the door, walking past Gretchen's desk and away from the office with as much decorum as possible.

She wasn't going to cry. Kate Beckett _did not_ cry over her job. It just didn't happen.

She wanted to call Castle, to tell him everything that had been going on in her head. It was enough, she had reached her limit, they needed to talk, but he had signings all morning. And what would he be able to do, really? Metaphorically pat her on the head, offer sympathetic sounds?

Talk to him. A voice in the back of her mind, which sounded annoyingly like her mother, whispered. She rolled her eyes, but as always her mother was right.

Sliding her phone back into her pocket she strode toward her office with a resolute nod.

Tonight. She would talk to him tonight.

* * *

Alexis' toes dug into Andrew's thigh as she lay with her head propped on the arm of the couch in his bachelor pad of an apartment. Since his roommates were still out of town for the break he had invited her over for dinner, a rarity in their lives, but she had been distracted all evening. Even now, with her boyfriend rubbing calming circles on her ankle and one of her favorite movies playing on the large flat screen before them, she couldn't drag her thoughts away from the conversation she had overheard earlier that day.

She had been on campus getting one of the labs ready as part of her new position as a student assistant in biochemistry. And of course the copy machine on her floor had jammed so she ran down to the language department to use theirs. Her path had taken her directly past Kate's office. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, she had had her hand raised to knock when she heard Kate's friend Rebecca exclaim about "Baby Beckett."

A baby.

Her father and Kate were having a _baby_. And they hadn't told her.

Shaking her foot free of Andrew's hand, she leaned down to kiss away his questioning expression before quickly apologizing and mumbling she'd be right back. Making sure the door to the bedroom clicked shut behind her; she padded across the worn carpet to pick up her phone off of what had become her nightstand. She needed to talk to her dad about this. Now.

* * *

A/N: Wow! I was hoping you all would be excited for a sequel but I never expected a response like _that! _You all are awesome. Thank you so much! :)

I apologize in advance, this might be a little slow on the updating but I am writing on this and my other stories as quickly as my little fingers and my precious free-time will allow. Just bear with me, please. :)

Kate- as always thank you for the beta and your valuable insight, and for reading Back to Where in 72 hours and subsequently becoming one of the biggest cheerleaders for this sequel. You are a champion.


	3. Chapter 2

Into the Unknown

Chapter 2

Richard Castle stared out the window of his Los Angeles hotel room, pensive, his collar unbuttoned, tie loosened, askew. His cufflinks had been long forgotten on the table beside him. He was supposed to be at a party right now, shmoozing with executives from the production studio. The first Jade Knight book was being made into a movie, the fictional persona of his muse to be immortalized on the silver screen. He had been in the middle of getting dressed when his phone had buzzed with an incoming call from his daughter.

"_Hey, Pumpkin! To what do I owe this pleasure? Were you missing your Dear Old Dad?"_

"_Hi, Daddy."_

_Daddy. His breath stuttered at the distant sound of her voice. He knew that tone. Something was wrong. Was she okay? Andrew? Mother? Oh God, Kate. Is that why she hadn't called yet? _

"_Pumpkin?" He forced the pet name past the lump growing in his throat. "Is everything okay?"_

_He couldn't mask the hesitation in his voice, the worry._

"_Oh, yeah, Dad, everything's fine. I just..."_

_He breathed a sigh of relief even though there was still that uneasy tone to his daughter's voice, the one he hadn't heard in years, maybe not since she had left for college. _

"_What's up, Alexis?"_

_Alexis breathed out a resigned sigh. _

"_Why didn't you tell me?"_

_His brow furrowed. He didn't make a habit of keeping secrets from his daughter. _

"_Tell you what?"_

"_I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, I promise, but I overheard Kate talking to her friend Rebecca today, and I know you've been busy with the book tour and the wedding, but I'm not going to lie; I'm hurt you didn't tell me Kate's pregnant."_

_That Kate was... _

_What?_

_No, she couldn't be. She would have told him. Yes, he had been gone for the last month, and she had been distracted with the wedding and the school year, but a baby? That wasn't something that she would just fail to mention._

_A baby. _

_She would have called. There would have been a text message with a picture of a positive pregnancy test - or no - he would have been on the phone distracting her while she tried not to look at the stick for the requisite three minutes of hellish suspense. Even better, he would have flown back across the country in an instant to take the damn test with her, because this was a baby. Their baby. Even if she were pregnant, surely she wouldn't tell Rebecca before him. She wouldn't even tell her mother before him. _

"_Dad?"_

"_Alexis... You heard Kate say she was pregnant?"_

_The silence on the other end of the phone was telling. He could practically see the wheels turning in his daughter's mind, the realization dawning in her eyes the moment she figured out that he knew nothing about this either._

"_Well, no, not exactly," She backpedaled. "I heard Rebecca say something about 'Baby Beckett' and I may have assumed that..."_

_He breathed out a sigh of relief. Even though there was still the possibility that Kate was pregnant and had kept it from him, at least now it was plausible that this whole thing was a miscommunication. After all, it had happened to them before. But after the first fiasco years ago, they had promised to talk to each other about everything. Of course, it still wasn't easy, neither one of them was a 'sharer' but they were getting better. She knew she could tell him anything. _

_Alexis was making excuses, saying that she was late for something; she had to go. He saw straight through the fumbled lie, but he let it slide, hung up with a quiet parting message of love and a promise to talk soon. _

Now, two hours later, his phone had buzzed at least a dozen times; each one a call from Paula or Gina, each ignored.

His third tumbler of scotch sat untouched on the table next to his cufflinks, the small pool of amber liquid long forgotten. He had sipped on the first two while watching the shimmering waves of pink and orange light swirl with ripples of heat and smog as the sun dipped below the hotels, office buildings and palm trees lining the horizon. He had let his writer's imagination come up with enough 'worst case' scenarios, each one a little bit more far-fetched and terrifying than the one before.

He balanced the weight of his iPhone in his palm, resigning himself to the fact that he needed to make this call because once he pushed past all of those terrible thought in his mind all he could think about was a little girl or boy with big green eyes and Kate's smile. It was time to hear her side.

Just as he was poised to swipe his thumb over the lock, the device came alive in his hand, a buzzing dance of vibrant light, one of his favorite pictures of her smiling up at him.

He swallowed, a feeble attempt to quell the swarm of butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

"Castle."

"Hey, Castle."

He felt his resolve falter.

"Hey. You sound tired."

If she had kept something this important from him, he might allow himself to be hurt, to be angry, even, but no matter what she said or didn't say, he had promised her always, and he would hold himself to that.

She sighed, the stream of air forming a cloud of static in his ear.

"Long day."

"You want to talk about it?"

Another sigh. His eyes flickered to the clock on the nightstand; red neon numbers glared back at him. It was just after eight, which meant it was after eleven back in New York. He could imagine her curled up on the couch in the loft, the television murmuring in the background, her braided hair hanging in a rope over her shoulder, dressed in a pair of sleep shorts and tank top. A glass of red wine would be on the coffee table next to her, momentarily forgotten but still within reach. Or maybe not wine, maybe tea instead.

"I didn't get tenure."

He could hear the heartbreak in her voice.

"But they said..."

"Apparently they lied. It wasn't in my contract, nothing set in stone."

"You can still apply next year though, right?"

"Yeah, technically I have ten years to make tenure but..."

"But what?"

He really hated not being able to see her face, to read her expression. Sometimes it was easier than actually listening to and forming the words.

"Dr. London _insinuated_ I would have a better shot of getting tenure next year if I tutor the new Russian ambassador's kids."

He swallowed. She sounded infuriated by the idea, but overall it didn't sound like the _worst _scenario. "That doesn't sound _that _bad..."

"It would mean giving up half of my classes to John Good, including Intro to Popular Fiction, because _he's _taking on more responsibility since _he's _the one that received tenure."

Oh, that explained it. Castle had heard stories about this 'John Good', an adjunct who had been brought on full-time just the year before. From what he could gather, there were some personality conflict issues at play between Kate and her colleague. And no matter how many times she insisted she hated that Pop Fiction class, he knew she loved it, especially the section on mystery novels.

He zoned back into the conversation in time to hear her turn to her Intro to Russian Literature course.

"That idiot doesn't know anything about Russian Lit. If I didn't know better, I would say that London was trying to push me out. Damn boys club. Why are men so infuriating?"

Castle blinked. He really didn't know what to say to that one. Was he qualified to apologize on behalf of his entire gender? It was time for a different approach.

"Well, it could be good to get out of the classroom for a little while. Who knows, you might like it."

He physically winced at the words as he spoke them, bracing himself for the tirade that was sure to follow. Instead he only heard her deflate on the other end of the line, like she was too physically and mentally exhausted to fight anymore, and part of him realized that she probably hadn't readily given into her boss's "suggestion".

"I'm a teacher, Castle. That's what I do, that's what I love. I honestly could never see myself doing anything else."

"Well, you'd still be teaching, Kate, just in a different setting, and who knows, maybe it will be good practice."

He winced again at the silence that followed the statement.

"What do you mean 'good practice'?"

Castle sucked in a breath, steeling himself. This was it, his opening.

"Alexis called me earlier..."

* * *

Kate's eyes grew wide. Of every scenario that stemmed from the combination of phrases like 'good practice' 'Alexis' the one she least expected was that the redhead had overheard her conversation with Rebecca, took it out of context, and had run to her father with the information. In fact, flashes of tiny, red haired babies had invaded her mind, followed with the sinking feeling that she might be a grandmother before the age of 35 and have her own children be younger than their nieces and nephews. Foolishly she had thought she and the co-ed had an understanding after that fiasco of mistaken identity with Mark a year and a half before.

Her eyes landed on the glass of red wine on the table next to her. In fact, her being pregnant really wasn't even a possibility. She had been taking the pill religiously for years, like clockwork at exactly the same time every day, and she and Castle even used a condom most of the time. Sure, there would probably be a time when children would become a possibility, but it _definitely _wasn't now.

This day was officially not getting any better.

She had considered seeking her mother's counsel after her meeting with London, but that damn petulant teenager in her had stubbornly refused to hit the 'call' button. Instead she retreated to the loft to lick her wounds in private armed only with an arsenal of cabernet sauvignon and Tolstoy. But she had found herself doing internet searches on the new Russian ambassador, Filip Dashkov, and his family.

He had two little girls, Nadiya and Anya, ages seven and nine. Their mother, Karina, had died in an industrial accident two years before. Dashkov, a former journalist who had been a vocal activist during the Chechen wars, had been in and out of prison for years on charges of political activism, until his wife had died. Then, it seemed, he had taken a different approach, moving his family from Chechnya to Moscow, trying to change the Russian government from the inside out. From what Kate could gather, he had been appointed to the position of ambassador as a power move by the Russian government, a show of good faith to the Chechen people; not that he wasn't an intelligent man, but just that he was a rabble-rouser, not their usual pick for such a position.

But while her heart went out to this man who had lost his wife and these two little girls who had lost their mother at such a young age, this was not her usual demographic. She wasn't a linguist or language teacher. She taught literature, and she was definitely not qualified to play 'mom' to two little girls; she could barely grasp the concept of having children of her own.

"I'm not pregnant, Castle. Alexis overheard Rebecca out of context," she sighed.

"Oh. Oh, yeah, well, you know. Maybe someday soon."

She could hear the disappointment creeping in with the relief in his voice. He had been excited at the idea. She hadn't even known he wanted more kids. Sure, they had talked about it being a possibility, and neither of them were _opposed_ to the idea but neither one of them had been rushing out to buy a crib.

She hadn't known.

An involuntary laugh snuck past her lips. "Castle, we aren't anywhere near ready for kids. Hell, I'm not even ready for this wedding."

"What are you saying, Kate?"

What was she trying to say?

She was trying to say she had finally settled on a date, May 2nd, after the end of the spring semester and after the deadline for his next book, but before summer. But she had also finally given in and called Paula back, since the publicist had been blowing up her voicemail for the better part of the afternoon, only to be told that she had to change the entire catering menu because apparently 'Creole was too specific a choice, and if they wanted to appeal to the broader spectrum of guests that it should be changed to French cuisine'. Her arguments that the New Orleans theme was set and meant something to them had fallen on deaf ears as Paula had argued that French was _still_ in theme, but Kate could see the jazz band being cast aside next in favor of a more elegant string quartet. And the idea of Rick even possibly agreeing with Paula and this could also be taken away from her was enough to send her into an anxiety riddled spiral and caused her to down the better part of a bottle of wine.

She wanted to tell him she wanted a small ceremony with the two of them, close family and friends. She wanted to run away to Tahiti or Barbados and get married with their bare toes wiggling in warm, pristine sand. She wanted to go down to the Secretary of State Office and be next in line to say their vows. She was okay with not getting married at all as long as she would be able to wake up by his side every morning for the rest of their lives.

The wine had given her the courage to finally pick up the phone and dial his number to voice her concerns, which had been orderly in her mind moments before but were now a jumbled mess. Nonsensical words, sentences, fragments tied in a knot on her tongue.

"I'm saying I don't want this wedding!"

She could feel the pit of her stomach drop as soon as the words had passed her lips, instant regret, making her want to reach out and grab them back, but it was too late. They were already flying through the air, bouncing off of cell phone towers and into his ear.

Silence.

Stunned silence. That was all that could be heard on either side of the phone line.

"Castle…"

"No, no I get it." She could imagine his face 3,000 miles away. Disappointment, sadness, anger, betrayal. She could see it all in his voice. "I should have known this would happen. After all, you have a history of bailing the minute things get a little difficult."

That cut deep.

"Castle, that's…"

"I, um, I fly home at the end of the week. Paula set up extra stops in Portland and Seattle. I'm going to go now. Bye, Kate."

"Castle, wait!"

But only dead air spoke back to her, the telltale silence of an ended call.

"… That's not what I meant."

* * *

A/N: Thank you for all the love- reviews, follows, favorites and thank you to all of you who went and read or reread Back to Where because of this sequel. I am truly flattered. And to Kate Christie thank you as always for turning my chapter into the red sea and making my words more prettier. I am now going to go... over there... and hunker down for both the storm brewing outside and the storm potentially brewing because of this chapter.


	4. Chapter 3

Into the Unknown

Chapter 3

Kate's hand fidgeted with her hair as she shifted impatiently from foot to foot in the elevator. It shouldn't take this long to go up twenty floors. She felt like she had gone ten rounds in the ring— it was taking all of her willpower to stay up straight. She had barely slept. Castle wasn't answering his phone. She wasn't the kind to beg and plead on a voicemail, but pride be damned, she had. Five messages of her asking, tears caught in her throat, for him to 'just please call her back'. Let her explain.

But then she had stopped, cleaned herself up, picked up her phone and taken the job with the ambassador, because she could not keep going like this. He would be back in a couple of days and she would explain when they were face to face and he couldn't ignore her. Until then, she had to live her life. Of course letting it go was easier said than done, even standing in the elevator with bright red letters flashing from twelve to thirteen to fourteen, her fingers itched for her phone. If only he would listen. If only she hadn't blurted it out like that.

Idiot.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator pinged, signaling her arrival, and her phone was still untouched in her purse. Her restless fingers tugged at her blazer, smoothed down the front of her jeans, twisted her unruly mane of hair into a spiral over her shoulder, and then she stepped off the lift and onto the twentieth floor of what was arguably one of the nicest apartment buildings Kate had ever been in. One thing was for sure— the Russians were sparing no expense when it came to their new ambassador. It had to be a shock to the little rebel from war-torn Chechnya.

Kate stopped short when she almost ran into the barrel of a man standing guard in front of the door. Arms crossed over his chest, the bulk of his biceps straining the black fabric of what could only be described as a government-issue suit. The tell-take spiral of an earpiece curled behind his ear. He couldn't be less than 6' 7".

"Um, hello," She stuttered, unusually intimidated. "I'm here to meet with the ambassador, I'm supposed to be tutoring his children."

"Name," the giant rumbled.

"Um, Katherine Beckett. Doctor. Professor."

"ID."

"Yeah, yeah, one second," Kate mumbled as she fished around in her oversized bag for her wallet. Damn it why hadn't she left it out after she had been practically frisked by the guy downstairs? She should have known there would be someone up here too. Her hand flailed for a second more. She really needed a smaller purse.

Silently she thanked the heavens when her hand finally connected with the soft leather. The Hulk was starting to look suspicious.

"Here." She held it out, her movement rigid with nervousness.

He inspected the thin plastic card for what had to be longer than necessary, taking his time flipping it over to look at the words on the back before inching it closer to his face to inspect the picture and examine the name.

For the love of God, they had to have radioed up to tell him she was coming. She resisted the urge to tap her foot in impatience, to snap at him. Sure it hadn't been the best of photographs, but come on, it was clearly her.

With one last piercing glance he shoved the card back into her hand.

"Clear."

After another second of hesitation she skittered around him, clutching her purse a little tighter against her side, her driver's license firmly in her grasp, her eyes never leaving the man.

Definitely not the chatty type.

Taking a moment to gather her wits she moved through the ritual of straightening her blazer, running her hands down her pants and through her hair and then lifted her hand to rap on the door, only then gaining the courage to turn back to the guard.

"It was nice talking to you," she called over to him before lowering her voice to a mutter when he failed to respond, or even twitch from his spot. _I can see that we will be having many pleasant conversations in the future._

She turned her attention back to the door only to find it open, a man with sandy brown hair staring back at her, bright green eyes twinkling.

"And you must be Ms. Beckett."

Kate could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. Of course he had chosen that moment to open the door, and oh dear lord the man was gorgeous. "Doctor, actually, Doctor Katherine Beckett, Ambassador."

"Ah, please call me Filip; I still have never gotten used to the formality of the title."

Kate ducked her head in acknowledgement.

"Oh, forgive me, please come in." The ambassador invited as he backed away ushering her into the lavish apartment. "Do you mind if I call you Katherine?"

Kate gave an internal shrug. Oh, what the hell, when in Rome right? "Kate. I normally go by Kate."

"Ah, Katya. It is a beautiful name, strong."

Kate startled at the statement. "Um, thank you."

"Oh, please, forgive me. I didn't mean anything improper. It is only that it is similar to my wife's name. Excuse me, I will go get the children."

Kate only nodded as the ambassador turned toward the back hall where the kids' rooms presumably were. Her right fingers fiddled absentmindedly with her engagement ring. It was starting to get a little dull. She made a mental note to remember to finally order that ultrasonic cleaning contraption Rick had been so excited about seeing in the latest issue of Skymall since he didn't want them to "have to go two weeks without their rings every time they needed to be cleaned" before the wedding. Assuming there would still be a wedding.

She heard two little voices chattering in Russian and she felt the butterflies swarm in her stomach. She had taught hundreds, thousands, of students over the years and she was good with children, but this was different. She hadn't worked with children since doing her required volunteer hours in high school in a class of third graders.

_Just talk to them like you talk to Castle_. The voice in her head suggested, causing Kate to snort out a laugh. That might actually work.

"_But Daddy, I don't want to learn English and Nadiya doesn't want to either."_ Drifted out from the hall, Kate quickly translating the words in her head, stumbling slightly over the Chechen dialect.

The whine was followed by an exasperated sigh. _"Anya, you do not have to have a lesson today, you just need to meet your tutor, but you have to learn, your teacher says you're not even trying in class."_

Apparently this was an argument they had had before.

"_English is stupid. America is stupid."_

"_Anya, behave."_

Kate could already tell this one was going to be a handful, but she had yet to hear a peep out of the younger sister, it seemed she was content to let her older sister fight this battle.

"_Momma wouldn't have made us learn stupid English."_

"_Anya, that is enough!"_

Kate glanced around, blanching slightly when she realized she had inadvertently drifted across the apartment. Quickly she strode back toward the entry, attempting to look unassuming when a little girl, presumably Anya, huffed around the corner.

Anya stood her ground at the mouth of the hall, arms crossed over her chest, bottom lip pushed out, causing Kate to have to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the petulant look on the slight girl's otherwise angelic face. She was the spitting image of her father, from the light brown hair to the piercing green eyes and strong jaw line.

Kate cleared her throat and took a step toward the child when the ambassador didn't immediately appear around the corner as well.

"Hello, Anya, I'm Kate," she greeted in English, unwilling to give into the girl's tantrum.

Anya merely spat back a word in Russian that made Kate's jaw drop open.

"_Anya, you apologize right now."_

"I am so sorry," Filip apologized as he rounded the corner into view, the second little girl wrapped around him in his arms. "She's still adjusting."

"It's okay," Kate replied. She could appreciate a strong personality even if she hadn't expected it to use _that_ word. God knows her own mother probably had a story or two to tell on the subject. "Change can be hard."

Filips shoulders sagged in relief and Kate briefly wondered how many potential tutors and nannies Anya had already scared off, turning to greet the girl still clinging to her father's neck.

"This is Nadiya," Filip introduced. Kate took in the dark brown mop of curly hair and sparkling blue eyes. She couldn't help thinking that this is what Castle's and her child would look like.

"I know," Filip laughed, misinterpreting her momentary silence. "There is no resemblance between us. If I didn't know better I would, how do you say, suspect the milk man."

Kate let out a laugh for the first time in days, and it felt good, like a couple pounds of weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. "Oh, no. I was just thinking that she's gorgeous. They both are."

Kate reached out a hand to the younger girl. "Hello, Nadiya, I'm Kate."

Nadiya eyed the hand skeptically before reaching out silently and shaking it then wiggling out of her father's grasp and running over to stand next to her sister, their hands clutched together.

"_She doesn't talk."_

Kate turned to Anya in surprise before focusing back in on the Ambassador. "She doesn't?"

"Well, she can," Filip explained. "She just hasn't since her mother died."

Kate did the mental calculation. That had been over a year before.

* * *

Her flop against the door as it closed behind her in the hall was anything but ladylike. A headache was already pounding behind her eyes. One girl who wouldn't speak and another who was hell bent against learning English. She was starting to think this was a job for a licensed therapist not a literature professor. How was she even supposed to teach them anything?

After a long moment of gathering her strength she pushed herself off of the wooden door, opening her eyes only to find herself face to face once again with The Hulk, a smirk pasted on his face.

"You could have warned me, you know," she snapped as she trudged past him to the elevator.

Only once she was alone in the relative safety of the lift did she allow herself to pull her phone out of her purse, and she found herself laughing with relief when she saw alerts for a missed call and a voicemail.

Punching her password as fast as possible she lifted the phone to her ear only to have her heart fall when she heard her mother's voice on the other end of the message, not her fiancé's asking her if she wanted to come over for dinner.

With her shoulders slouched in defeat and a steel drum band playing in her head, the last thing she wanted was to chitchat her way through dinner, but she could use some advice and a nice stiff drink.

* * *

Johanna watched her daughter as Kate swirled the remnants of the deep red liquid of her second glass of merlot. She had already been enlightened as to the hurdle Kate would have to jump in relation to the tutoring job, but there was still something bothering her daughter, something more pressing. Of course, getting Katie to talk about anything personal was like pulling teeth lately.

In one smooth motion she swiped the quickly emptying bottle off the counter, plucked out the cork and filled her daughter's glass back to the acceptable halfway line. She would have filled it to the rim of she hadn't thought it would make Katie suspicious. She knew her daughter, and halfway through glass number three the words of woe would be flowing.

"Well, it sounds like you'll have your hands full will these two, Katie."

Kate let out an incredulous snort. "Compared to these two, a room full of smart ass freshman would be a cakewalk. At least with the college students, I can curse in Russian for the first few weeks and they have no clue what I'm saying."

Johanna bit her lip as Kate gulped down another sip of wine. "Do you know what you're going to do?"

Kate sighed. "Well, don't have much of a choice. Dr. London was pretty clear."

She paused to pick at the edge of the decorative placemat in front of her on the granite countertop. "The ambassador is slated to leave for LA on Thursday with his daughters for a conference. He invited me to go along, no pressure since I only just met them today, but he said he would like me there so that the girls could get to know me better..."

"But?" Johanna prompted gently, raising her own glass of wine to take a sip.

"But Castle is supposed to get back into town on Friday and..."

Oh, now they were getting somewhere. "And it's been weeks since you've seen each other. Well, why don't you just tell him to meet you in LA, he's still going to be in Seattle, right?"

Kate shot her mother a guilty look. So, apparently there was more to this story.

Johanna waited while her daughter took another long pull of wine.

"I may have said something on the phone the other day."

"May have said _what_ exactly?"

"That I didn't want to get married."

"Katie!" Johanna clamped her jaws shut.

"I didn't mean it like that! It's just that Paula called _again_ and she started making all these changes _again_ and I don't want it to be like this, and I tried to tell him, I really did, but then he kept going on because he thought I was pregnant because Alexis overheard something out of context and of course went running to him instead of talking to me first and then I just kind of blurted it out. And now he won't pick up the phone or call me back so I can explain that I only meant that I didn't want _this _wedding not that I don't want to marry him at all."

Johanna watched, wide eyed as her daughter finally deflated, Kate's head falling into the crook of her arm on the counter, fingers still clutching the stem of the half empty wine glass.

Well, she hadn't expected that.

Silently she picked up the bottle again and topped off Kate's glass. This situation called for round four.

* * *

Castle let out a sigh of relief as he dropped his keys onto the table just inside the door to the loft Friday afternoon. The image that greeted him in the mirror looked grim: his normally impeccably pressed clothes were rumpled, and there were dark purple smudges beneath his eyes citing the fact that he had barely slept the last few nights. But he was happy to be home. He glanced around as he trudged through the silent space. Everything was exactly as he left it, except for the blanket that was thrown haphazardly over the corner of the couch where Kate like to curl up and a couple bowls and a wine glass in the dish drainer. Nothing was missing, though, and that made the fist clenching at his heart relax.

Her various knick knacks still lined the shelves, pictures of her parents and their own engagement were adorning the top of the piano next to photos of him, Alexis, and his mother. He stepped into the bedroom slowly, smiling, relieved when he saw her clothes still hanging in the closet. Sure he had been mad, he had ignored her calls, her messages. He hadn't even listened to them beyond the first two, but that didn't mean he wanted her gone. They obviously had things to talk about and he was ready now. He just had needed a couple of days to sort out his own thoughts and feelings. He had known she was stressed out, but that didn't mean he had expected her to call off the wedding.

He fiddled with his phone, debating calling her, but it was still early, only two. With a shrug he punched 2 on his speed dial anyway. She was probably just in her office.

He frowned when it went straight to voicemail. Kate never had her phone off.

Ending the call, he opened his messenger, typing a quick text telling her he was back in town and he was ready to talk. She would get the chance to check her texts before her voicemail anyway, especially if she was in the middle of a class.

He froze. He didn't even know if she had taken the position with the ambassador and his kids or not. His eyes fluttered shut as he slumped down on the bed. He was an idiot. He should have just called her back, talked to her.

No. No. He wasn't going to do this now. He would take a shower, eat something, get his head on straight, and then he would call her again. She would be home later and they would talk.

* * *

She hadn't come home.

Castle beat his fingers against the countertop restlessly. He had taken a shower, tossed and turned through what could possibly be defined as a nap, and then had taken to cooking to keep his mind occupied. He glanced at his watch for the second time in as many minutes. It was 9:22. Even her latest class never went beyond 5. She should be home by now. And her phone was _still_ off.

Maybe he should call her mother. Johanna would know where she was.

Nodding his head in agreement with his own plan, he pulled his phone out of his back pocket only to be greeted by his voicemail icon. Oh, he _was_ an idiot. She had left him countless messages; chances were in one of them she would have said where she would be on Friday, the day he was supposed to get home.

He punched in the number with deft fingers but listening to the first message his heart sank. She was pleading for him to call her back. And with the two subsequent messages he felt even worse. He had completely ignored her.

She sounded resigned in the fourth.

_Hey, Castle_, _it's me again. It's Thursday. I just wanted to let you know that I took the job with the ambassador and I'm actually at JFK right now waiting to go to LA with them. I know you don't want to talk to me right now; you've made that abundantly clear. _Her biting tone at the end of the sentence made him wince. _But I'll be home on Sunday so we can talk then. _She paused as an announcement came over the speaker and then she breathed a heavy sigh into the receiver. _I have to go, we're boarding, but I'll call or text to let you know we've landed. Love you. _

"I love you too," he found himself replying to the voicemail.

His mind wandered as he listened to the next couple messages, one from Alexis telling him to call her when he was back in town, causing him to make a mental note to do so. The next was from Paula, a call he had strategically missed, about floral arrangements.

_There are no more new messages. _

Castle frowned into his phone. That was strange. Why hadn't she called?

Pulling it away from his ear he checked for text messages.

Nothing. Weird.

But it was probably nothing, she had simply forgotten with the time change, jet lag and the chaos of getting to the hotel and looking after two tired little girls.

Punching in her number again, he listened as her voicemail recording clicked on after the first ring.

He felt a clench in his chest even as he rationalized that she was probably just busy or her phone had died and she hadn't had the chance to charge it.

On Saturday he started to feel uneasy when he still hadn't heard from her and her phone was still going to voicemail, but he wrote it off to a hectic schedule and a new job.

When nine o'clock Sunday night came around he found himself, with trembling fingers, dialing Johanna Beckett's cell phone.

"What do you mean she isn't home yet?" He could hear the worry edging into Johanna's normally even voice. "Her plane was supposed to land at 2:57 this afternoon."

Castle hung up with a mumbled, nonsensical excuse. Only then did he finally allow himself to panic.

* * *

A/N: Well, now things are starting to get interesting. Thank you to all of you who are continuing to read and enjoy this saga and to those of you who took the time to review, you do not know how much your kind words mean to me. And as always a special thanks to Kate Christie for taking the time to edit this chapter until I was forced to (good naturedly) yell at her to go write her own (bleeping) story. Always appreciated. ;)


	5. Chapter 4

Into The Unknown

Chapter 4

He paced the apartment, the phone pressed to his ear. The living room, office, bedroom, up and down the stairs, through the corridor of the upper level. He paced the building hall, pausing in front of the elevator every time he saw the numbers begin to ascend. He called down to the lobby. He called the airline. Katherine Beckett had never boarded the plane in Los Angeles. He called Johanna again. He called Kate's phone more times than he could count.

After rummaging through his fiancé's briefcase and scrolling through the Columbia website with shaky fingers, he called Rebecca, only to have her groan at him followed by a mumbled 'do you know what time it is?' Castle glanced at the clock, 3am. He apologized, properly chagrined through his panic and hung up the phone.

He went back to pacing.

As the sun glimmered over the horizon he balanced his phone in his palm, weighing his options. His fiancé was gone, missing, who knew for how long. The last time anyone had heard from her had been Thursday. She'd left him the message, and called her parents with flight information. Then she had disappeared into the ether. He debated calling the Russian Embassy, inquiring about the status of their ambassador, but he couldn't see that conversation ending in any information that would be anywhere near helpful, and he could almost imagine a pair of Russian thugs knocking on his door, cracking their knuckles, in response to his "inquiry". His writer's imagination was getting away from him.

There was only one avenue left, one that he really didn't want to go down given history, but seemingly his only option. With a deep breath he dialed.

* * *

"Thanks for meeting me," Castle started, his hands wringing on the Formica table top as the two men eyed him from across the table. "I wasn't really sure who else I could call."

"Look, Castle, we're sympathetic, we really are, but I'm not really sure there's much we can do for you."

"What do you mean 'not much you can do?' You're the damn police; you can _investigate._ My _fiancé_ is _missing_. Find her."

"Castle..."

"Look, okay, I know this looks weak..."

"You're damn right it looks weak. Your fiancé tells you she doesn't want to get married and then she's gone when you get home. That's not a missing person, bro, that's a runaway bride. And I'm sorry, I really am, but there's nothing we can do about that."

Castle glanced between the two detectives. They looked tired, run down, like they had seen too much in the years since he had seen them last. And chances were good that they had. Detectives Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito: he had shadowed them for a week a few years before when a copycat had decided to base a series of murders off of scenes from his books. He had noticed the connection from a news report, a woman's body found covered in flowers, and approached the pair's boss- Captain Roy Montgomery, pleading his case that he could be an asset, after all he knew his books better than anyone. He had hoped he would be able to tag along on a couple of cases, gain some more insights for his books, get him past his writer's block. Unfortunately, the case had ended in a standoff in an alley, Castle with a gun pressed against his temple, and it had been decided that he would be too great a liability to the city of New York. Castle had shrugged it off as probably being for the best. No one wanted to read about a pair of male detectives in New York, it had been done. He had needed something fresh, something different. Kate.

He needed Kate.

"She didn't run away. Trust me. I know her. If she had, she would have at least called her mother. No one has heard from her in days. Please, I just need a couple of hours from you."

"Castle, we're homicide detectives. We don't do missing persons..."

Castle rubbed his thumb over his brow as he shifted his gaze from the tabletop to Detective Ryan. "Kevin, if your wife just stopped calling you one day, you would panic, right? Even if you had had a giant fight, if you two were barely speaking, if she said she would call then she would."

The fair-haired detective eyed him warily before conceding with a shrug. "Yeah, yeah, she would."

"Okay, okay. See? Please, just do this one thing for me. If it turns out to be nothing then I will apologize and let you two get on with your lives. I promise."

Esposito sighed as he leaned back in the booth, arms crossed over his chest. "Fine. So what are you proposing?"

Castle felt the relief sweeping over him, an involuntary laugh escaping his lips. "We need to talk to this Dashkov guy."

The detectives shared a look. "The Russian ambassador? _You_ want to talk to the Russian ambassador?"

Castle gulped before nodding in confirmation. "Yes."

* * *

Castle stared at the behemoth before him in the corridor. Standing easily at six foot three inches, it wasn't often that he found himself looking up at people, but God help him, his neck was craned as far back as possible at the moment. Ryan and Esposito had gone ahead, with strict instructions for him to stay back and keep quiet, as they pounded on the door.

The guards, the two bored looking gentlemen in the lobby, and Gargantuan, were acting like everything was business as usual, and that had Castle's spidey senses tingling. They were too calm, too nonchalant. He mentally bet $100 and a bottle of scotch that the ambassador would be in the middle of a mysterious meeting and unable to come to the door.

He held his breath, peering around his human-shaped roadblock, as the chain clattered, deadbolt turned and the door crept open.

"Excuse me, sir. NYPD, we need to talk to Ambassador Dashkov," Esposito began, his badge shoved into the man's face.

Castle counted the seconds, the lines already written in his head.

_The ambassador isn't here._

_I'm sorry, detectives, he's in a meeting right now. _

_Unavailable. _

"I'm Filip Dashkov. How can I help you gentlemen?"

Castle's head snapped up. No. No no. That's not what was meant to happen. Something strange was supposed to have happened. A plane crash, a government conspiracy cover up, alien abduction.

"We're sorry to bother you, Ambassador, we know you're probably busy."

"Oh, no, detectives, it is no problem. I am happy to help New York's finest."

Castle watched, stomach sinking, as the ambassador flashed an easy smile for Ryan and Esposito.

"We're actually here about the woman who has been tutoring your children, Katherine Beckett?"

"Oh, yes, Kate. Wonderful woman, my children just adore her. Is something wrong?"

Castle watched as the appropriate level of concern became etched on the ambassador's face.

"Well, it seems she hasn't been heard from since Thursday. Her mother and fiancé have expressed concern for her well-being."

Castle's heart thumped in his chest. Here it was, this was it. Dashkov hadn't been expecting this, he would falter.

"Oh, I am sorry to hear that. I assure you, when my daughters and I left her in Los Angeles yesterday she was fine."

Exactly when they had left her in... Wait? What? No. That wasn't right. Why would she have stayed in LA?

"So you're saying that Ms. Beckett stayed in LA yesterday instead of returning with you and your children? Did she say why?"

Dashkov shrugged with a frown. "I told her we would not need her until Thursday since she was with us all weekend and she replied she would stay in California to visit some old friends and she would see us later in the week."

Castle's eyes narrowed. No. Kate wouldn't do that. Without thinking he took a half step forward, only to feel a giant hand press against his chest stopping him in his tracks. His gaze flickered to the guard, grunting out an apology, before focusing back in on the ambassador. The man was still standing in the doorway, his body obstructing the view into the apartment, his shirt slightly rumpled, a tint of red to his eyes. His short blonde hair askew, like he had been running his hands through it constantly.

"And your children are here now? Can we speak to them?"

"I'm afraid they are in school at the moment but if you would like you can come back later to speak with them."

"Oh, thank you Ambassador, but that probably won't be necessary. Thank you for your time."

"I hope you do hear from Ms. Beckett. Please have her call me when you do."

"Of course, sir, I'm sure it's just been a breakdown in communication. Thank you for your cooperation."

Neither of the detectives would meet Castle's eye as they all stepped into the elevator, or for the 20 floors down. It wasn't until they were out of the lobby and on the sidewalk beside the unmarked sedan did he let the dam burst.

"What was that? Kate is _missing _and you just let the last person to see her go without even a question?"

"Castle, look..."

"No. You don't get to placate me. He's_ lying_. His eyes, his clothes. He hasn't slept in days. Something is not right."

"Castle..." It was Ryan that approached him this time. His hands outstretched in surrender. "You and Kate had a fight. She lived in California for years, right? She has friends there. Her... ex is there. She probably just went to see some of them, wanted some time to cool off, to get her thoughts straight. And you said she's done this before. Run."

"Well, yeah, but that was different. She had just broken up with her fiancé and wanted some time alone..."

Castle deflated at Ryan and Esposito's twin knowing looks. "No, guys, this is different."

"It doesn't seem like it is."

"Sorry, bro."

Castle stood, defeated in the middle of the sidewalk as the detectives made to get into their car.

"Come on. We'll give you a ride home."

"No," Castle shook his head. "I think I'm going to walk."

With his hands shoved in his pockets, he studiously ignored the pitying looks as he shuffled down the sidewalk, the August sun beating down on him, the heat radiating off the pavement, stifling. No matter how hard he tried to deny the niggling feeling, suppress what his gut was screaming at him, he couldn't.

She was gone.

* * *

Kate forced her own stuttered breath to slow, even out, matching that of the body curled into her back. A slow tear leaked out of her eye, dripping to the soft cotton of the sheet. In any other case it would be luxury, but not now, not like this.

Her mind played the movie of the last couple days like a broken reel. Segmented, distorted. At moments she was sure that it was a dream, that it couldn't possibly be reality. But it was. This was real. She was here in this hotel room, stuck. A gilded cage.

Part of her was still trying to put together the pieces, how she had gotten here. Her eyes drifted shut, a feeble attempt to erase the past four days.

Four days. Castle would be panicking by now. Her mother. She had promised she would call and hadn't. Castle worried if she stopped by the store on the way home, and forgot to text that she would be fifteen minutes late. But they had fought; they hadn't spoken in days, so maybe he was packing up her things. Maybe he didn't care that she hadn't called. Maybe he was happy she was gone.

A soft whimper swam to her ear, interrupting her thoughts, forcing her eyes back open, and she let out a soft soothing sound— inane, placating.

"I want go home, Kate. I just to go home."

"Shh," She breathed in response to the words uttered in broken English. Her hand reaching out, running through the girl's soft blonde hair, Anya staring back, eyes wide, terrified in the dark. Nadiya's forehead pressed harder between Kate's shoulder blades, the younger girl thankfully asleep.

Her gaze traveled up. The man in the chair in the corner was watching them, always, never wavering. The hand holding the gun rested on his thigh. Still, vigilant, a statue. She could hear the others talking outside the door. One day Arabic, the next German, before that Chinese, never a language she could understand more than a word here, a fragment there. A mixture of accents: mercenaries, untraceable.

Pulling Anya closer into her chest, Kate's hand soothed circles into the girl's back, her eyes never leaving the man in the corner, her gaze trained on him and the gun as she attempted to interpret the murmurings.

Gibberish.

_Sefir. _She knew that one. _Karaba. _She knew that also. She forced her mind to rewind, to remember. Arabic. Morocco. She had been securing transport from Tangiers to Spain.

Sefir meant to... travel. Karaba...

She froze.

Karaba: boat.

* * *

A/N: Thank you all for reading and for the gentle (and not so gentle pushes) to post MOAR! I am so happy you are enjoying this. As always I love reading your feedback and reactions. To my partner in crime, Kate Christie, thank you for the beta and the swift kick in the butt, always appreciated. Oh, and if guys aren't reading her story Rewound, GO READ IT and then give her a kick in the butt to update. K? Thanks. (You're welcome, KC. You are welcome.)


	6. Chapter 5

Into the Unknown

Chapter 5

Castle stared at his phone on the desk. He had been doing too much of that lately- staring at his phone, willing it to ring, hoping for her number to pop up on the screen. Paula had called him five times already that morning, annoyed that Kate wasn't taking her calls. Castle had wanted to yell, to scream, and tell her to 'shut the fuck up, not everything was about her and the stupid wedding' but it was, wasn't it? That's why they had fought in the first place. The wedding. Paula. Kate had been unhappy for months. Castle had seen it and he had ignored it, written it off as jitters, because this was what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to have a big wedding and have his privacy invaded and his photo plastered all over page six. In fact, a small part of him even enjoyed it, showing off his brilliant, gorgeous fiancé to the world.

She said she was okay with it, but he wasn't an idiot, he felt her tense up on his arm every time cameras were around. She didn't like the limelight, she never had. She enjoyed the sanctuary of her everyday life. But he had convinced himself that she would get used to it, even come to enjoy it like he had. He had been naive, and now she was gone.

His fingers closed around the phone. He needed to make this call. He had met a couple of her friends from California, but he knew the one place she would go. Slowly he scrolled through his contact list, his heart pounding in his chest. He didn't want this to be the answer, but at the same time it would be better than the alternative, because if she hadn't gone back to him, then he had no idea where she was. There were no more leads, and the detectives had pretty much, albeit politely, told him to fuck off.

Tapping on the number he held the phone to his ear, barely able to hear the ringing above the pounding of his own heart.

"Hello?" A tired voice mumbled.

Castle swallowed, his voice caught in his throat. It was a woman on the other end of the line but it wasn't Kate.

"Hello?" The voice asked again slightly more curious with just a hint of impatience.

"Yes, yes, hi," Castle forced the words to roll off his tongue and past his lips. "I'm sorry, I may have the wrong number, but I am looking for Mark Alexander."

"Oh, no you don't have the wrong number. Hold on a sec, I'll get him for you."

Castle lifted an unsteady hand to wipe the beads of nervous sweat off his forehead.

"Hello?"

Castle jerked as he heard the equally tired but distinctly male voice come on the line. His eyes darted to the clock on the wall, wincing slightly. It was nine o'clock in New York, meaning it was six am in California. "Mark, hi, I'm sorry to call so early, but I have a question for you?"

"I'm sorry, who is this?"

Castle sighed, wanting to pound a fist into his own head at his panic-induced stupidity. Of course, Kate's ex wouldn't know his phone number. They had only really spoken once, and that was a handful of stilted sentences on a New York sidewalk when Castle had been five seconds away from kissing the other man's fiancé.

"Sorry, sorry, um, this is Richard Castle."

Silence filled the line.

"Mr. Castle, what can I do for you."

Castle winced at the sudden chill in the other man's voice. "I know that I'm probably the last person you want to speak to, but I was wondering if you've spoken to Kate lately?"

"Kate?"

"Yes, I uh," Castle flopped back in his desk chair. What the hell, he might as well be candid. "We, we had a fight, and she went on a business trip to LA. She was supposed to be back days ago, but no one has heard from her, not even her mom, and I thought maybe she had gotten in contact with you."

Castle heard the rustle of sheets through the receiver, presumably the other man sitting up in bed. Mark sighed, a loud burst of air across the line. "You mean you were wondering if she had come crying to me and jumped into my bed?"

"Well, no, that's not exactly what I meant." Castle felt himself deflate. "Well, I guess, maybe."

"Does that really sound like something Kate would do?" Mark asked, and Castle couldn't bring himself to answer, because no, he didn't want it to be something Kate would do. But how well did he really know her? How well did any of us really know one another? "Don't worry, Rick, she's not here. I haven't heard from Kate in over a year."

Castle swallowed, nodding silently into the phone. The knot in his chest loosening as the one in his stomach tightened. Part of him had been hoping she would be with Mark, because then at least he would have an answer, and he would know that she was safe even if it meant he would be heartbroken.

"Oh, okay, thanks," he mumbled into the phone before letting it fall into his lap, the line still open. He couldn't help the sob that burst past his lips. He had no other leads.

She was just gone.

* * *

In the beginning she hadn't even known what was happening. The ambassador had come into the room where Kate was sitting at the table with both girls, trying to engage them in conversation - not an easy task with one girl who was selectively mute and another who was stubbornly pretending to not understand a word of English - kissed both his girls on the head, announced he was headed out to a meeting, told his children to be good and listen, and for Kate to order room service if they got hungry.

They had gone back to their studies, and Kate hadn't even noticed that anything was amiss until an hour later when she decided that it would do all of them some good to get out of the hotel for a little while. That had been when men with guns stopped them at the door. The ambassador: missing. His entourage: gone. Only these thugs remained.

Was Dashkov part of this? Was he dead somewhere? He wouldn't knowingly allow or order his children kidnapped, right? Was he trying to find help?

She had asked, begged, pleaded with their kidnappers to tell her something, anything about what was going on.

_Who are you? Where are you taking us? What do you want? Money? I can get money. Please, just don't hurt the children; let them go. _

But it was the children they wanted, wasn't it? Kate was of no consequence to them; she was just a teacher, a glorified nanny, in fact she was the one they could kill without a second thought.

Now, as she stood in the middle of the cell of a suite that had been the lap of luxury only days before, Kate's mind flashed back to those self-defense classes she had taken during her freshman year at Stanford, after the campus police had scared them all half to death with tales of young women being assaulted on the way to their cars in the middle of the night, making the male population between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four out to be a clan of hormone, alcohol and drug fueled Neanderthals who were more than willing to conk a woman over the head with a rock and drag her back to their caves.

There was a small voice in the back of her head willing her to remember, to just let go and allow her body to effortlessly move through the motions, disarming the brute in front of her, swinging the gun around to aim it at him, a quick jab to the nose, poking two fingers in the eyes or larynx, a knee to the groin, a well placed elbow in the solar plexus. She could see it in her imagination, playing like a movie. An old-time silent film, crackling black and white with piano music filling in the silence, a comedy of errors where she would come out on top, saving the girls, fleeing down the hall until they found safety and a phone where she could call Castle, the police, her mother, everyone and anyone.

_You can do it_, the voice cheered. She drew in a deep breath, her eyes trained on the gun as she shielded the two girls behind her, Nadiya clinging to one leg as Anya's hand tucked itself into the waistband of Kate's pants, her little fingers holding on for dear life. Kate hadn't slept. She had felt herself dozing off once or twice in the middle of the night but had forced her burning eyes back open. She hadn't wanted to miss any sliver of a conversation she might actually be able to understand.

Her hands loosened imperceptibly from around the girls as the man took a step toward them. They were supposed to be leaving now; he was just awaiting orders to take them out of the room. Part of her wanted to burst out laughing at how insane the whole situation actually was. They were being held hostage in a five star hotel in the same suite they had been occupying with the ambassador just days before, in the middle of a city surrounded by millions of people, none of whom even knew they were missing.

_Castle. Castle will look for you._ She swallowed thickly. _That is, if he wants anything to do with you anymore._

The man's eyes wavered as he listened to the voice on the other end of his earpiece, and Kate knew this was her chance. She could do it, she just had to do it, to bolt forward and attack, but her body froze despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She wasn't a cop, she wasn't military trained, or even a black belt. She had taken five self-defense classes over a decade ago. She was helpless against a man twice her size, armed with enough artillery to outfit a small army. So she found her arms tightening back around the girls, taking half a step back from the man who was now advancing on her.

Kate forced her eyes to not slam shut out of fear and pure exhaustion. She wasn't a hero. She wouldn't be able to save them. The only thing she could hope was that someone would find them before it was too late.

"Move," the man mumbled with his heavily accented voice as he motioned at the door with the gun. "Do anything stupid, and the girls die first."

Kate nodded, the jerking motion making her head feel heavy. _Nightmare. Please let this be a nightmare_. She prayed to a god she had long wondered if she even believed in, as she moved with stilted legs toward the door, turning down the hall to the service elevator, into the whatever hell they were destined for next. She couldn't help but wonder why she was still alive.

* * *

Castle hadn't moved from his chair for hours, a tumbler of Scotch in his hand, the cool glass pressed against his cheek, the amber liquid sloshing slightly with his every breath. He had no clue what to do now, nowhere else left to turn. Kate's phone had been turned off for days. The only small comfort he had was that she had to be in the United States, because her passport was still in their safe deposit box. Unless she had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the country. _Oh, God, _he thought as scenarios involving international drug cartels, slave trades, and sex traffickers reeled through his head. She could be anywhere.

_If she's still alive, that is_, the voice in his head taunted. But she was still alive; she had to be. He would know if she weren't. That was the deal with soul mates, right? He would feel it, a knife to the heart, a punch to the gut, if she were dead. He would feel empty, like there was a huge gaping hole in his chest where she belonged. But was that not how he was feeling right now, like his heart had been ripped out and torn to shreds?

A knock on the door startled him, and his heart skipped a beat. What if…

Slowly he pushed himself out of the chair, only to find himself unsteady on his feet. He honestly hadn't thought he had drunk that much, but then again he also couldn't remember the last time he had eaten.

Forcing one foot in front of the other, he propelled his body across the chasm of the living room to the solid oak front door, his heart drumming a staccato beat in his chest.

What if she had come back, just like that? Would he be happy, would he be angry that she had made him worry?

Who the hell was he kidding? He would pull her into his arms and never let go again.

Reaching out he twisted the knob, the threw the door open in one fluid motion only to find himself face to face with bright green eyes. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming.

"Hello, Richard." Kate's mother greeted him, compassion flowing from her hesitant yet warm smile.

"Johanna," he sighed in return, deflating against the edge of the door.

"How are you holding up?"

He shook his head, as he found the spot on the carpet just in front of her toes extremely fascinating.

"Mark called me today."

"What?" His head snapped up at that.

"He told me he had just had a very strange phone call from you, that he was worried about Katie and you."

Castle felt the last tether of strength allowing him to hold himself together snap, and the tears started flowing down his cheeks as the words streamed over his lips. "I don't know where she is, Johanna. The cops won't even look into it, and I've done everything I can. I'm sorry, I'm _so_ sorry, I tried."

Castle forced his gaze up in time to see Johanna nodded her head and he was startled to see a wall of steel and resolution in her eyes as he wiped a tear from his own, the plan forming in her mind as she brushed past him into the apartment and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling in reinforcements. We're going to find my daughter."

* * *

A/N: Thank you all for reading, your kind words and your patience. As always I love hearing what you think. Thank you also to Kate Christie for being my awesome beta and putting up with my 10,000 ongoing stories.


End file.
